$2 USB Bluetooth Adapter + $10 Ac Wifi Adapter Review

[minervx]

Both on ebay.  The bluetooth adapter was from led-world-lighting.  The wifi adapter was from mancaracomputers.  I wanted wireless connections on my desktop while not adding bulk or costing too much money.  Both are USB-2 compatible, I believe.

 

Bluetooth adapter works great for mouse and keyboard on day to day tasks.  Response time is fast and slowdowns are practically non-existent.  I wouldn't use it to send large amounts of data, long-distance connections or for high-end portable speakers, but it might work.

 

The wifi connection worked better than I expected.  Web browsing is very smooth.  Lag in online gaming is very rare and very brief if it does happen.  Unless you're an ultra-competitive gamer, I don't see how a premium PCI wifi could be much better for gaming.  Ultimately, I've found that the connection speed has more to do with the signal and ISP than the adapter itself.  I found my download speeds to be slow, although that's far more attributable to my distance from the router, VPN slowing down the speed (when it is used) and wireless signals being slower in general.  In better conditions, I'm sure the download speeds would be satisfactory. 

 

If I were an ultra-competitive gamer or I wanted to take my musicianship to the absolute pro-level, of course, I wouldn't leave anything to chance, but this $12 combo works perfectly fine for my casual and prosumer uses.

 

These adapters aren't as bad as members on this forum have made them out to be.  I think the community in general exaggerates the inferiority of products geared toward the more casual market.  

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, minervx said:

These adapters aren't as bad as members on this forum have made them out to be.  I think the community in general exaggerates the inferiority of products geared toward the more casual market.  

I'm not a much of a gamer or heavy bandwidth user, but my Intel 8265($18 for both AC MU-MIMO 2x2 and BT 4.2) hasn't had a single disconnect issue while traveling across campus or at the other side of my house unlike my phone, previous adapters and laptop NICs. While the inferiority could be exaggerated, you typically will get a more reliable experience with better adapters/equipment. Granted this doesn't directly plug into USB but you can get a PCIe adapter for around the same price for desktops, and newer laptops, you can just open it up and replace the previous NIC. (As long as it isn't a soldered on one of course)

[minervx]

Yes, I would imagine a PCI wifi adapter would yield wider range, more speed and have less reliability issues,  However, at $30-40 for the good adapters, it may as well be worthwhile to use Ethernet or a powerlink adapter.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, minervx said:

Yes, I would imagine a PCI wifi adapter would yield wider range, more speed and have less reliability issues,  However, at $30-40 for the good adapters, it may as well be worthwhile to use Ethernet or a powerlink adapter.

(Well $18 in a laptop) Just thought I should say this, I don't carry my desktop around campus, but my laptop